Larissa Smith to present on Molecular Biological Tools for Monitoring Selenium in Mine-Influenced Water at the Conference of Metallurgists (COM 2024).

Larissa Smith (Ontario) will present “Molecular Biological Tools for Monitoring Selenium in Mine-Influenced Water” at COM 2024 on Wednesday, August 21, 2024, at 10:40 a.m. at the Halifax Convention Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her coauthors are Melody Vachon, Phil Dennis, and Jeff Roberts from SiREM, and Andrew Holmes and Silvia Mancini from Geosyntec Consultants.

Larissa Smith is a Scientist in the treatability division of SiREM. She has more than 10 years of experience in treatability services and studies, and in other testing fields.

Microbial communities play a significant role in the treatment of inorganic constituents at mine sites, often through direct metabolic reduction. Targeted quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) allows for quantitative monitoring of specific genes whereas next generation sequencing (NGS) can be used to provide comprehensive microbial community profiles that are used to monitor important metabolic functions. In this study qPCR tests, NGS, and differential plating methods combined with genetic colony identification were used to detect and characterize microbial communities that reduced selenate (SeO42-) to selenite (SeO32-) or SeO32- to elemental Selenium (Se). This combination of novel and classic molecular biological tools provided multiple lenses to view selenium metabolizing communities and can increase our ability to understand how microbiology impacts treatment processes for selenium.